As­cend­ing

pub­lic trans­port is such that Seoul was the lo­ca­tion for the 1988 Olympics, part of the 2002 World Cup and 2010’s G20 sum­mit, the suc­cesses of which are a tes­ta­ment to the city’s abil­i­ties.

Geopo­lit­i­cally, Seoul is mak­ing the most of its his­tor­i­cal and re­gional ties. Since the Korean War, it has re­tained close co­op­er­a­tion with the US, cul­mi­nat­ing in the bi­lat­eral Free Trade Agree­ment (FTA), part of a wider strategy to be­come an FTA hub coun­try in North­east Asia, es­tab­lish­ing such deals with over 45 other coun­tries – a net­work un­like any other in the re­gion.

But the Seoul sen­sa­tion is not without its short­com­ings: the lack of English, and trans­parency, among reg­u­la­tory bod­ies is an is­sue raised by many multi­na­tional cor­po­ra­tions.“Some­times there’s red tape, and some­times there’s a lot of po­lit­i­cal